The Black and Gold Spirit game has produced its first commit with the verbal from Melvin Spears that was announced early on Friday. Spears, who was in attendance for the Penn State game last weekend, is a linebacker from Texas and is now the 15th member of the 2011 Iowa recruiting class. He is also the 3rd linebacker that has committed to Iowa. Spears is rated 3-stars on both Scout and Rivals.

Spears in High School

Spears attends Allen High School in Allen, TX. The Eagles currently boast a perfect 6-0 record this year with their most recent victory coming last night beating Plano East 34-24. Spears had an interception last night in the win. He has also been playing well all season and earned the Defense Player of the Week award by the Dallas Morning News for his 11 tackles, 1 interception, and 1 forced fumble outing a few weeks ago.

Video!
The Allen Eagle Football site has 3 videos featuring Spears (they are all .wmv files):

Quick Thoughts:
Linebacker was one of the most important positions for Iowa to recruit this year with 4 seniors on the two-deeps. We saw last weekend too, the importance of having a deep pool at middle linebacker as the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd string guys all were out leaving true freshman James Morris to play the majority of the game.

Spears looks like a good prospect to help at the position. In his film he moved laterally very well, especially in run support. He also made a few big plays dropping back into coverage. He seems like the prototypical guy that Ferentz likes to recruit that could play linebacker, tight end, fullback, or put on some size and grow into a lineman.